Despite what some IMDB user/commentators have written about this film, Roger Corman had nothing to do with it in any way.
"Master of the World" probably would have been a much better film if he had been involved, however. You would think that combining the great Vincent Price with the great Charles Bronson in a film based on a novel by the great Jules Verne would have been...you know, great. But everything the filmmakers do keeps this from being true. The special effects are pathetic, even by the Hollywood standards of the day. The airship model is intricate to be sure--but it is so poorly lit, and the footage of the actors is so poorly edited, that it resembles nothing so much as a Tonka toy on a string. In fact, the whole look of the film is laughable, with a set design right out of the "Batman" TV series--bright primary colors and cheap Irwin Allen style simplicity. It's like being inside a Fischel Price toy set.
The musical score doesn't help any, either--it is comic when it should be dramatic and dull when it should be suspenseful. I think the composer was trying to ape the score from "Around the World in 80 Days." In any case, the music is always present (blaring annoyingly) and never enhances.
The editing is also oddly inappropriate. A good example is a particularly dramatic and potentially hair-raising scene in which Bronson and another man are suspended beneath the dirigible, dangling thousands of feet above the ocean by ropes. The editor keeps cutting from this action to a slapstick scene in the airship's kitchen to show how the ship's motion is causing comic havok for the chef. Any drama or suspense in the sequence is killed mercilessly.
The only saving graces are the ones I have previously mentioned: Charles Bronson is good as the hero (!), Vincent Price is great as the villain/antihero, and Jules Verne's story, though mangled a bit, is brilliant in concept. How and why the filmmakers managed to mess it up so terribly is beyond understanding. This would have made even Corman vomit.
"Master of the World" probably would have been a much better film if he had been involved, however. You would think that combining the great Vincent Price with the great Charles Bronson in a film based on a novel by the great Jules Verne would have been...you know, great. But everything the filmmakers do keeps this from being true. The special effects are pathetic, even by the Hollywood standards of the day. The airship model is intricate to be sure--but it is so poorly lit, and the footage of the actors is so poorly edited, that it resembles nothing so much as a Tonka toy on a string. In fact, the whole look of the film is laughable, with a set design right out of the "Batman" TV series--bright primary colors and cheap Irwin Allen style simplicity. It's like being inside a Fischel Price toy set.
The musical score doesn't help any, either--it is comic when it should be dramatic and dull when it should be suspenseful. I think the composer was trying to ape the score from "Around the World in 80 Days." In any case, the music is always present (blaring annoyingly) and never enhances.
The editing is also oddly inappropriate. A good example is a particularly dramatic and potentially hair-raising scene in which Bronson and another man are suspended beneath the dirigible, dangling thousands of feet above the ocean by ropes. The editor keeps cutting from this action to a slapstick scene in the airship's kitchen to show how the ship's motion is causing comic havok for the chef. Any drama or suspense in the sequence is killed mercilessly.
The only saving graces are the ones I have previously mentioned: Charles Bronson is good as the hero (!), Vincent Price is great as the villain/antihero, and Jules Verne's story, though mangled a bit, is brilliant in concept. How and why the filmmakers managed to mess it up so terribly is beyond understanding. This would have made even Corman vomit.